Paradigm Persona series

@audiotroy Getting back to some audio questions since I seem to agree with a lot of your tastes in sound. I would like to ask your opinion. I heard the TAD ME1 recently and you were correct, it is an great monitor speaker. It is unfortunate that they raised the price again to $15k.

If you had to choose between the TAD and the Persons 3F for a small acoustically treated room which would you take? I think the 3F would be clearer and maybe preferred by me but the TAD ME1 seems like a perfect physical fit over the 3F. I sit a bit off-axis so the TAD maybe better. It is tough for me to decide without having both in my room, which is not possible. Cannot go wrong with either but I would be interested in your more informed opinion.

OK just heard the Persona 3f at Axpona and nice midrange and top end BUT bass was muddy and not much definition this even with room correction. Yes it was in  hotel room but didn't do anything for me.

@audiotroy,

The persona series uses the same midrange and tweeter throughout if I am not mistaken. I've heard the line up several times.  Sonically, they are extremely similar from the 3's to the 9's.  I don't like them, but I understand that some out there who love every last detail, don't listen loud, and love analyzing every last detail... would be interested.  The first 15 minutes that I heard the 7's I thought they were clinical, but it was cool for a few minutes to hear everything in the recording.  Then I turned them up... and that was it for me.  So, let's just get that out of the way.  I listened to the 7's in a decent room, with a nice tube pre-amp at a good dealer.

As far as "amp matching" and system matching goes.. Most would agree that it's more critical in the midrange and tweeter to get the right amp.  Heck, with the 9's they have an internal amp and ARC (which I do think does a nice job eq'ing bass)... so you could argue that the amp is LESS critical with the 9's than the rest of the line-up that has to also drive the bass.  So, if it takes stellar electronics to "Bring out the best" of the 9's, than what does that say for the rest of the line-up that uses the same midrange and tweeter, but actually needs the amp to drive and control the woofers?

The whole "82 octane gas" doesn't really hold weight... I'm also going to go ahead and "guess" that when Paradigm voiced them, they did so with Anthem electronics... so for one to get what the MFG really intended the speaker to sound like, it should not take more than anthem electronics (and frankly it probably wasn't the new STR stuff when the Persona's were developed).  

Suppose I would be interested to know if paradigm used uber-expensive speaker stands or whatever flavor of iso-acoustic stand you push when they voiced them - if so, why not include them on the flagship model?  What's an extra 500 bucks at that point?

This isn't to say that amps/pre's/sources don't sound different, but the law of diminishing returns is steep in audio.  If someone wants to buy audio jewelry, cool, if someone wants cables that looks like a firehose, all good by me.  If you can sell it, good for you.

But to endlessly shill these products, and try to rationalize a speakers faults (and heck they really aren't faults, they are just how Paradigm voiced them) and say that you can mix and match with some high-brow knowledge of audio alchemy is just wrong and a big pile of crap.

But if someone doesn't like say the 3f... doubling the cost of the amp isn't going to do the trick.  That same amp is also going to sound relatively similar on the 5, 7, etc... it's the same midrange and driver.

I could care less what someone buys, in fact if anyone is looking for an absolute steal on a Persona center channel I know of a dealer blowing their stuff out and they have the center and stand left and are asking 3500 bucks for a demo unit.  

But bottom line, most of ones budget should be spent on speakers in almost every case.

I also agree... any 33k system better sound pretty damn good assuming a good part of the budget was spent on speakers.

Dep no they are not extremely similar across the line.

Like any manufacturer there will be a house sound, but it does change a bit as you go from model to model.

The 3F sounds similar but different to the 5F. We demoed the 3F to 5F comparison at another dealer and the 5F was a bit more mellow, had a bigger soundstage and of course had more bass.

The Persona 7 and 9 are the same speakers with the 7F not having the 9’s active bass.

The Persona 7 and 9 also use different bass drivers then the 3F and 5F.

Do they sound similar? Yes they do, but there are still audible differences between the models.

We demoed the 3F in the exact same room with the same gear, as our 9H and they sounded very different.

As per the Personas 9 needing less of an amp, because the bass is powered, again not true, as the 100 watt Manley tube amp, the Snappers are fantastic did not sound as good, as the CJ which were 275 monos, nor did the Devialet, nor did the Electrcompanient, nor did the Thrax gear the T+A gear was clearly the best sounding this was the consensus for both the Polymers MKX-S our previous reference loudspeakers and the Persona 9H.

As per your ridiculous assertion that the majority of your budget should be spent on speakers, look back at the car analogy.

If the heart of your car is the engine, the loudspeakers, and the rest of the car is your electronics and ancellory products, then this analogy should make it perfectly clear,

Take a 600 hp Ferrari engine and drop it into a Toyota Camery and lets take it for for a drive, did you just save your self $200,000.00 by creating this pairing?   Now ;ets suppose that the car’s transmission could actually handle the horse and power, do you think that the Camery has the braking power, suspension to enable this mess to actually drive?  The second you would try braking into a corner you would be dead as the suspension and brakes would be woefully inadequate for the job at hand and you would be headed to the guard rail and your untimely demise.

There is a reason why a high perfromance sports car drives like it does. A high perormance sports car is built around all the major subassemblies peforming their function optimally and in concert with each other. 

If you have a great engine, you need adaquate brakes to stop the car and high performance braking systems are expensive, so is the suspenson system which must hold everything together which also includes the entire frame and body which must also do its job. Hence a $200k sports car costs $200k because it is built with all of its parts working together and specified to provide a working envelope that the vehicle can perform optimally in. 

Substitute any cheapie parts and watch the car's ability to perform be compromised severely.

In our experience the electronics and source components, should cost 1 to 2 times the cost of the loudspeaker as a general rule. The addage garbage in garbage out is very true in audio. That is not to say that you can't buy a $5k amp and run a $10k set of speakers nicely that is also summising that you are not getting all you can get out of those $10k loudspeakers.

That is also not to say that you can't sometimes find value pairings that can sound surprisingly excellent but as a general rule the more exotic and expensive a loudspeaker is the higher the quality of what you need to drive it is going to be.

As per the other point that someone made about the Anthem electronics they are excellent for the price, but do you honestly think that the Anthem design team brought in tons of different competiting brands and tested and evaluated how they could build a better product, or did they forumulate some ideas, design a circuit based on some of their previous work and then build said product.

We have done these kinds of tests and the Anthem STR amp and preamp are great, but not in the same degree of great as the T+A gear or the Krell Illusion preamp and 300XD are.

So the moral of this story is if you are looking at this kind of product you must be prepared to use the right gear.

As per your doubling the electronics comment, we demoed the 3F at a client using a very good older Classe Intergrated amplifier a $5k amp along with a T+A dac so this would be a $10k package and the 3F didn’t sound a lot better than his older Dali Helicons.

Switched in a Naim Nac 272 preamp/dac and a Naim 250Dr and boom the 3F sprang to life, and sounded fantastic.

So again your experiences don’t mirror ours at all. The right set of electronics, cabling, and source components can make or break a set of speakers.

As per a dealer blowing out any product, so have we, certain products didn’’t work in our store or were not to our preference that doesn’t invalidate that product it just means it wasn’t working for us and our clientele, the same can be said of other dealers.

All I can tell you is when our Persona 9h are running with the T+A gear and a good source, the sound is among the most three dimensional and life like sounding systems we have ever heard and that includes some crazy expensive systems that are $200-400k.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ Persona dealers